1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to microelectromechanical structure (MEMS) fabrication and, more specifically, the present invention relates to the fabrication of an ultra-high frequency beam resonator.
2. Description of Related Art
As microelectronic technology progresses, the need has arisen in the wireless communication area for smaller and higher frequency resonators for both signal filtering and signal generating purposes. The prior state of the art used discrete crystals or devices that generate a surface acoustical wave (SAW) for their desired functions. As miniaturization of devices progresses, the discrete crystals and SAW generating devices become relatively larger and therefore much more difficult to package. For example, discrete devices limit the size of the overall system to larger configurations and they are more expensive to produce and to install.
In data storage technology, the speed of data writing and data access has been limited to prior state of the art devices. With the pressure in the industry to push the microprocessors to higher clock speeds, pressure was also felt in the data access and storage technology. One of the limiting factors is the resonance frequency of the read/write head for some devices. Additionally, relatively long access times cause a hindrance to increased performance of devices used in this field. In the prior art, there has been no foreseeable solution to achieving faster MEMS based storage.
What is needed is a MEMS resonator that overcomes the problems in the prior art by offering, among other things, a higher resonance frequency.